'New California' movement seeks to divide the Golden State in half

Two men launch campaign to split rural areas from 'tyrannical' coastal cities.

Two men have launched a campaign to divide rural California from the coastal cities, motivated by what they referred to as a “tyrannical form of government” that doesn’t follow the U.S. Constitution or the state one, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Unlike the failed 2016 campaign to split California into six states, the “New California” movement, founded by Robert Paul Preston and Tom Reed, seeks to consolidate rural California into a distinct economy separate from the coast.

"After years of over taxation, regulation, and mono party politics the State of California and many of its 58 Counties have become ungovernable."

— New California movement

"After years of over taxation, regulation, and mono party politics the State of California and many of its 58 Counties have become ungovernable," the movement declares on its website.

Preston and Reed say the citizens of the state live “under a tyrannical form of government that does not follow" constitutional requirements.

"There's something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed," Preston told CBS Sacramento.

The "founders" have evoked Article IV Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution as justification for establishing a new economy with a new state constitution.

It states that a consensus must be reached by the state legislatures of California as well as Congress. The process, according to New California representatives, could take 10 to 18 months.

The New California movement unveiled a “Declaration of Independence,” earlier this week that called for a “free and Independent State” with “full power to establish and maintain law and order, to promote general prosperity.”